In many places where public gather for the acquisition and exposure of products and services, such as fairs, conventions, information centers and so on, there is a need to use furniture and counters for the public that approach to the suppliers that present their products to them. In this regard, there is an important variety of such furniture, e.g. wooden-made, metallic, furnished with shelves, partitions; in general terms, though, they are bulky, difficult to handle and transport thereof results in hardships since they take up a lot of space.
In the prior art, one known solution to such problems has involved the creation of carton folding furniture and counters, nevertheless, their structural rigidity is poor and, furthermore, it is not possible placing heavy things on them. In addition, this type of carton-made furniture lacks of an outstanding aesthetical appearance, which is an important factor to achieve a commercial impact of the product or service being supplied.
There also exists furniture with countless panels, rods and posts that cooperate each to other; however, assembly thereof is time-consuming and the pieces to be assembled are too many.
Despite the above, there are counters that have been broadly accepted and which are practical to use for such purposes, among them there are those counters that comprise a base and a cover mounted on the base and a board mounted on at least one post that is inserted in the cover. In this type of counters, the board helps to identify the name of the supplier or the product being offered, while the supplier is located behind the counter to receive the customers approaching the counter.
One of such counters is disclosed in Mexican Patent No. 212,227, whose most significant advantage is that the counter elements can be demounted and stored in the form of a briefcase, in which the cover forms a shield for said briefcase and the base is housed within; at the same time, the other pieces of the counter are also housed therein.
The counter of the above-mentioned patent was restructured in Mexican patent No. 225,710, wherein the most significant changes are the inclusion of 45° cuttings between the post sections that support the board and a second shelf that runs on a rail, in addition there is provided a support to secure the post sections within the second shelf. In spite of such modifications, the board is still unstable since it sways over the cover; furthermore, the shelves frequently fall off their horizontal position because at their free side ends the shelves are secured only by pressure between the side panels of the base.
In the international patent application No. PCT/IB2005/002083, there are provided a series of modifications to the counter of Mexican Patent No. 225,710, and such modifications relate to the inclusion of means for supporting the shelves firmly so that they do not move, either that the counter is in an upright position or folded.
In this type of counters, the cover is an independent piece that must be manipulated to mount it on the base, and serves as a housing for the folded base, this action may become complicated for some people, apart from the fact that it takes time to do these operations.
Structurally, the cover of these counters includes a rear wall or cap hingendly connected to the rest of the cover body, this feature is aimed to allow the base, once folded, to be introduced into the cover, which is closed when taking the rear wall to its original position and fixed it by means of locks to the rest of the cover body. As it may be observed, this type of covers includes an important amount of pieces that must be machined independently to be assembled all together, therefore their cost and manufacturing time is increased.
An additional disadvantage of this cover is that when pieces of the counter are stored into the cover, the base remains exposed and it may be susceptible to have scratches and scraps on its surface.
As it may be observed, the cover of the counters of the previous arte plays a substantial role, since it is the part where the other parts of the counter are stored, and products to offer are placed on it. New covers that are easy to build and that still allow to house the other elements of the counter are required.